


Ichabod Gets a Haircut

by artemyspyke



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Haircut!fic, dead wife angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-29 09:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemyspyke/pseuds/artemyspyke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abbie Mills had been staring at Ichabod Crane’s head for six and a half straight minutes.</p><p>There was some statistic out there that said six seconds or more of eye contact signified the desire for sex or murder. Even though Ichabod hadn’t met her eyes even once yet, she still felt the desire for both of those things, and it all circled around the hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ichabod Gets a Haircut

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, all! I just started watching Sleepy Hollow, and it's an utterly delectable show! I just love Ichabod and Abbie, so naturally... fic time! I hope you enjoy this silly fluff.

Abbie Mills had been staring at Ichabod Crane’s head for six and a half straight minutes.

There was some statistic out there that said six seconds or more of eye contact signified the desire for sex or murder. Even though Ichabod hadn’t met her eyes even once yet, she still felt the desire for both of those things, and it all circled around the hair.

The _hair_.

She bit her lip. Ichabod was sitting perched on the edge of her living room couch, bowl of cereal in one hand and spoon in the other, eyes fixed on the television. Her Netflix was playing an episode of old Star Trek, and she wasn’t sure she’d even seen him blink since she hit play. Having run out of money to keep him posted in the motel where he’d stayed for the last month, Abbie had finally accepted the fact that he needed somewhere with a washing machine and a shower.

Thus, Ichabod Crane, time travelling spy from the revolutionary war, was now living on her couch.

Earlier that morning, after rolling out of bed herself, she’d come into the living room to find him fluttering around and messing with anything that looked especially 21st century. She’s paused in the doorway, watching him continuously start and stop a song on her ipod, letting it fill the room, and then cut off. She knew he’d be embarrassed if he caught her staring, so she’d moved on to the kitchen without a word, and fixed them both breakfast.

Now he was watching intently as Kirk and Spock had another completely blatant moment of sexual tension, crunching his cereal with focus.

Then he brushed his bangs out of his eyes.

“O- _ho_ -kay,” Abbie said, standing and tossing her empty bowl into the sink. Ichabod tore himself away from the program.

“Lieutenant?” he asked, slurring it crisply like _leftenant_ as he always did. She stood by the sink with a soapy scrub brush in her hand, and took a deep breath. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she said, knocking a soggy cheerio into the garbage disposal.

“Your tone suggest otherwise. We may watch a different ‘episode’ if you would like,” he said. Abbie closed her eyes.

“It’s not that.”

“Then... what?” he asked. She looked at him, sitting there in a tight t-shirt that used to be her ex’s, with that stupid floppy mop on his head, and something in her stuttered.

“Can I do your hair?” she blurted.

A long moment stretched between them.

“My... hair?” he clarified, hazarding a look at one lock hanging in his eyes. “Does it bother you so much?”

“Yes,” she nodded, flinging a soap bubble upward. “It’s just... I can’t even explain it, I really can’t. But I need to do something with it, or I might actually go crazy.”

“Crazy.”

“Yes.” There was another moment of silence, and then Ichabod stood up. The too-small shirt just ghosted to the waistline of his old sweatpants, and Abbie found herself watching his ankles as he walked past her to the sink.

“Pass me the disinfectant,” he requested, holding a hand out. She sighed and passed him the brush.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Crane,” she said. He looked a little standoffish.

“Clearly your modern idioms are beyond me, then,” he said, coldly cleaning his bowl of cheerios.

“What I meant is that... maybe it’s time you got a more... 21st century look. I’m pretty good with hair, I promise. Mine isn’t really straight.”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

“I prefer to keep what I can of my own era, thank you.” He set his bowl down carefully, and strode past her back into the living room. She leaned against the counter, feeling guilty. Opening a box of poptarts as a peace-offering, she tore the foil wrapper, and followed him to the couch. On a positive note, he didn’t shy away from her when she sat down beside him. He didn’t look at her, but he did take the poptart, and together, they chewed thoughtfully.

“You’ll like this one,” she insisted magnanimously, of the episode they were watching. “Spock loses his _mind_.”

 

 

-*-*-

 

She gave it another go a few weeks later, after she had an appointment to get her hair relaxed.

“I swear, having your hair done is great,” she said, feeling the softness of her own. Ichabod was sitting in the passenger seat, having just endured sitting in the waiting area of a hair salon, with nothing to do but flip through style magazines.

His own hair was growing longer, and it now curled red-brown past his shoulders. Sometimes he tamed it back with a ponytail, but half the time, it hung loose.

“I’m sure you’re entirely right, Lieutenant,” he said, still flipping through a style mag that he probably stole. “And yet, I am no more convinced to let you near my hair with a blade than I was a fortnight ago.” He gave her a stern look. “Leave it be.”

 

 

-*-*-

 

“Do you know how to braid?”

“Do I- what?” he asked. The two were standing on the outskirts of a crime scene, blue and red lights flashing and casting shadows on everything.

“Braid. Like, hair,” she repeated, pointing at her own. Ichabod’s thick eyebrows were a flat line of unamusement.

“Are you still persisting in this silly quest to cut my hair off?” he demanded. A few neighboring cops looked up from their conversations, and Abbie sucked on her teeth.

“I don’t know where you got that from, I was just asking you a simple question.”

“I half-fear you’ll cut it whilst I sleep!” he hissed, quieter this time. He strode a few feet away, like that would help something.

“Never,” Abbie insisted. “I just don’t understand what your aversion to this is, okay?”

“ _Katrina.”_

She stopped short. “What?”

Ichabod was facing away from her, so she could only see the line of his shoulders in the dark of the evening, but they were tense.

“Katrina used to cut my hair for me.” It was so quiet that she could barely hear it. She swallowed hard.

“Is that why you don’t want to cut it?” She moved to stand beside him. He was looking at the ground.

“It seems wrong. Almost... unfaithful,” he murmured. Abbie felt a little sick.

“Why didn’t you tell me before? I would have stopped insisting...”

He never gave her a reason, and the drive home was quiet. Abbie wanted to apologize, but didn’t quite know how. They got back to her apartment, and Ichabod climbed the stairs silently, before disappearing into the bathroom. Queueing up another Star Trek episode, Abbie moved to the kitchen to start dinner, when she heard the door to the bathroom open.

“Look,” she said, turning to face the entryway, “I never meant to...” she trailed off. Ichabod was standing in the doorway holding a pair of scissors.

“Lieutenant, if you wish to cut my hair, then I suppose... there are few in the world I would rather have do it.”

“But Katrina,” she started.

“Is not in this world... is she?” Ichabod said, gracing her with an honest smile. Something in her chest tightened and loosened at the same time, and she gave him a wobbly smile back.

“Okay,” she nodded. “Okay.” She took a step forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “But,” she plucked the scissors from his hand, “these are safety scissors. You’d end up looking like Moe from the Three- actually, nevermind.” She pushed him back out of the kitchen and into the bathroom, surreptitiously wiping her eyes when he couldn’t see.

For the next forty minutes, she washed, dried, and cut his hair. It would take the Headless Horseman himself for her to admit it, but she took a little longer than strictly necessary toweling his hair dry, if only because the muffled _nrg_ noises he kept making whenever she rubbed his face were just too hilarious. She ran through a comprehensive list of hairstyles in her head, but every time she was fully committed to one, scissors hovering millimeters from the first snip, she couldn’t do it. Ichabod was sitting in a chair, back to the mirror with a towel draped over the back of his neck, waiting expectantly. She couldn’t just jump into it and ruin everything.

So, erasing every plan she had before, Abbie combed her fingers through his hair, and began cutting.

A long time later, much longer than she’d anticipated, she was done. It looked honestly gorgeous, but she didn’t know what he would think. It was probably not what he was expecting.

“Okay, are you ready?” she asked, swallowing. He nodded, his face intensely earnest. They shared a smile, and then she swivelled his chair. He stared at the mirror for a long time.

“What do you think?” she asked, heart rate accelerating.

“Miss Mills...” he said, fingering a strand. She held her breath.

“I do believe this is the finest haircut I’ve ever had.”

It rushed out of her in a gust. “Really? You like it, then.” The Ichabod looking back at them both was new. His hair was soft, no more snarls and dreadlocks nestled in the curls. It looked redder, shinier, healthier. The best part was that the actual style was almost no different than before.

“I tried to keep it the way that it was, but...” she tapped the hair shears down onto the countertop. “Just fixed up.” The ends were trimmed off, leaving it closer to the length it was when they met.

“Fantastic,” he said, still surveying it in the mirror. Then he turned to face her. “I thought you said I needed to be ‘modern.’” His eyes narrowed.

“Plenty of men wear their hair long these days,” she said, waving her hand. “I just thought... if it makes you feel closer to your old life then who am I to try and change that?”

“Why, Lieutenant,” he said, fixing her with a salty look, “I never fancied you a sentimentalist.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you want me to cut the rest of it off?” she asked, rearming herself with the shears. He blinked a few times. “I didn’t think so.” She tossed them into a drawer and left the soldier sitting in the bathroom.

“I made dinner,” she continued, walking into the kitchen. “Er...” she stopped, taking in the messy countertop, “I sort of made dinner.” Ichabod followed her.

“Raw chicken,” he stated. Abby grimaced and dumped the dubiously spoiled meat into the garbage disposal. Then she reached into the nearest cupboard and pulled out a bag of chips.

“Look, I just found more,” she said, and walked back out. Star Trek was still waiting for them on Netflix, and Abbie hit play, waiting for Ichabod to settle like a large bird onto the couch beside her.

“Thank you, again, Miss Mills,” he started. “I apologize for my initial reluctance...”

“Oh, stop,” she said, pulling him so that he toppled into a more comfortable position. “You’re welcome.” They fell into silence as the title rolled on the episode. “You know you never answered my question, though,” Abbie mused. Ichabod side-eyed her.

“What question is that?”

“Can you... braid hair?” In response, she felt him shift, and then a pair of hands were grasping three locks of hair and deftly twisting them before she could even turn her head. Laughing, she reached and touched the new thin braid near her temple.

“You’re gonna have to do that for me more often, Crane.” With a wry smile, Ichabod turned towards her.

“Of course, _Leftenant_.”

 


End file.
